


Battle Scars

by icewhisper



Series: Leonard Snart Shorts [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 02:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11244840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewhisper/pseuds/icewhisper
Summary: Surviving the Oculus didn’t mean Leonard suddenly became good with words. When he returns, Sara and he return to the dance they’d been in the middle of before, each of them unwilling to be the one to make the final move. The decision gets taken out of their hands.





	Battle Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of my writing blog, [leonardsnartwrites](https://leonardsnartwrites.tumblr.com/). Normally, it would have been posted under the collections fic, [Leonard Snart Shorts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10837056), but it ended up longer than expected.
> 
> Anonymous prompt: They find Leonard alive after the Oculus and after the events of season two him and Sara fall back into their easy banter once again and when they are getting close Sara gets seriously injured in a mission far away from the Waverider, Len takes care of her with Jax and the rest of the team helping him out.

He’d had a bad feeling about the mission from the word go.

It hadn’t just been the way the team had to break up—Mick with Nate, Ray, and Stein could only lead to bloodshed—but the gut feeling… He’d only survived as long as he had because he’d trusted his instincts. He’d walked away from good jobs with guaranteed payouts because something didn’t measure up quite right. He had a system and the missions the Legends insisted on going on… They broke nearly every damn rule he’d ever set.

He’d said as much when they were trying to put a plan together, Mick grunting along in approval as Sara cast them both appraising looks, but he’d been overruled. He hadn’t been back long enough. Stein brushed him off while Ray rambled about something technical, but he saw everyone give his hand an uneasy look.

His right hand—the good one—curled into a fist as anger rose up in his chest. Spit out by the time stream with his arm burned by something Gideon couldn’t fix. Whatever had powered the wellspring had burned and crippled the limb, but they acted like it was his brain that had been damaged.

He moved his left hand into his parka’s pocket, hand trembling with the strain of the movement, and grit his teeth.

“I’ll keep the nerd triplets alive, Boss,” Mick told him at a mutter as they prepared to spit up. “You got them?”

“My group at least has some self-preservation,” he replied, even if he still didn’t understand the reason they were splitting up Firestorm.

“Sara’s died three times.”

“Two,” Sara said as she moved around them to get at her throwing knives. “The first time was just presumed.”

“Not a vote of confidence, Blondie.”

“You trust Leonard,” she reminded him before he left and cast Len a small smile. “Did you die or just annoy the time stream into spitting you out?”

“Jury’s still out on that one,” he drawled, but the fact was that he didn’t remember. One second, he’d felt the heat licking up his arm. The next, he was hitting the uneven ground of a forest and screaming while his arm burned.

She rolled her eyes, but the smile stayed on her face, and she reached out to brush her hand against his bad arm. He tensed, same as he always did when someone other than him initiated some kind of contact, and the smile flickered before it died. She dropped her hand. “Sorry.”

He shook his head. It hadn’t hurt—he didn’t have much sensation in that arm anymore—but it wasn’t the time or place to start telling his shitty backstory. Even if it were the time and place, he probably wouldn’t, not even with Sara. They were dancing in the territory they used to before the Oculus, but no one had made the step to push it farther and address feelings or the kiss.

Time and place, he thought ruefully. Time and place.

 

 

The mission went bad almost immediately. A fire fight of bullets and futuristic blasts that didn’t belong in 1523. The jump ship was grounded from a lucky canon blast—a fucking _canon_ —and Jax and Amaya were working on it while Len and Sara provided cover, but they weren’t hopeful. The team could get to them eventually, but that was if they managed to get through their part of the mission.

“On your left!” Sara called out to him and Len pivoted, cold gun firing at a soldier.

“I’m running low on charge!” he called out to her as she brought her bo staff down onto someone else. Something cracked. He was pretty sure it was the guy’s spine.

“Get back to the jump ship!” she ordered. “Trade out with Amaya!”

He nodded, sharp. He didn’t want to leave the fight, but he was crap at hand-to-hand now—Mick argued he was shit at it to begin with—and Amaya could fight. They’d only sent her along with Jax in the first place, because he’d been teaching her the mechanics. They’d hoped they’d fix it faster, but if they hadn’t by now…

He slammed the butt of the cold gun into the middle of someone’s back and stepped back, ready to make the short run back to the jump ship. Sara would be on her own for less than sixty-three seconds. She could handle herself for that long, even with the numbers they were against. High numbers, but low skill. She’d be-

He saw it happen right as he turned to make the retreat; the soldier coming up in her blind spot and too close for him to call out. A knife—too long for a dagger and too short for a sword—stabbed into her side.

She hit her knees.

He ran for her instead, cold gun shooting and _wishing_ he could still use his left hand. He needed the core, but he couldn’t stop shooting long enough to wrestle it free.

“Get out of here,” she told him as she clutched at her side. Blood slipped past her fingers too fast. “Leonard-”

“Shut up,” he grit out and shrugged his shoulder up to his ear to activate his comm. “Kid, give up on the ship. Sara’s hurt. I’m out of charge. We need backup.”

“On our way!”

They made it there in forty-two seconds, Amaya bursting through with one of her spirits Len didn’t care enough to pay attention to, but it was enough to control what was left of the army. He guessed thirty seconds of repreieve before they broke through.

“Pressure,” he told Jax as he laid down his gun and forced the panel open, fingers scrambling.

Jax—smart kid that he was—nodded and tore his jacket off in some hurried attempt at a bandage. “What are you doing? I thought you were out.”

“The core’s not connected to the battery,” he explained shortly as he worked. “Think grenade hidden in a gun. Get her back to the jump ship and take cover.”

“You and Amaya-”

“Fourteen seconds behind you. _Go_.”

Jax nodded again, jaw clenched, and lifted Sara up into his arms. She cried out at the movement, but she was still conscious. Good. Consciousness was good, he reminded himself. “Fourteen?”

“Fourteen,” he confirmed and looked back to Amaya. She’d downed more soldiers, but they could have avoided this whole thing if they hadn’t sent Stein off with the other group. He’d _told them_.

“Amaya!” he called out, lifting the pulsing core when she looked back. She understood. He knew she understood. She sat with Mick enough while they worked on their guns that she knew about their backup plans with the cores.

Another soldier went down and she channeled something with wings—he didn’t care what—and dove for him as he revisited childhood baseball dreams.

Eat your heart out, Elsa.

 

 

There was blood everywhere. Blood and Sara was trying to keep the cries back, but the pain was clear on her face. Sweat gathered on her forehead as they tried to patch her up, but the jump ship only had a first aid kit. It wasn’t designed to help people as injured as her. No med bay. No Gideon.

“Try again,” he told Jax as he and Amaya scrambled to try and slow the bleeding.

“You take over.” Jax knelt down next to Len, face serious. “You can’t do this one-handed, man. Let me do this.”

“I-”

“I’ll take care of her, Snart,” he told him, voice suddenly soft. “You’re slowing it down.”

A harsh reminder, but it was the truth. He nodded and exhaled through his teeth. “Keep your hand here,” he instructed.

“I’ve got her,” Jax promised. “Call Mick.”

 

 

Mick got them there in twenty-seven minutes and six seconds. The landing wasn’t as clean as Mick’s usually were, but the team was there, skidding over the ice rink the core had created in its blast.

The Waverider and its med bay was there, he told himself as they gathered Sara up and focused on the transfer. She was unconscious by then, but she was _breathing_.

“She’ll be fine, Boss,” Mick assured him when he steered Len towards the showers instead of the med bay. “Gideon fixed her up after she got her neck snapped. She can handle some blood loss.”

He didn’t realize his good hand was shaking until the blood had been washed off.

 

 

Alive. Sleeping. Someone—Amaya, he guessed—had cleaned off the blood and changed her into a pair of pajamas before Len made it back to the med bay. They exchanged a look as she left, knowing and supportive. He reminded himself to talk to Mick about running his mouth. That or the dance Sara and him were doing was getting much too obvious.

He stayed with her until she woke up that night, groaning and grimacing at the flashes of pain the meds couldn’t dull.

“Pretty sure I told you to get back to the jump ship,” she chided with a tired smile.

“You’re welcome,” he shot back. “I think we both know I don’t follow orders.”

She hummed. “You were right about the mission,” she admitted softly.

“I’m always right.”

She huffed out a laugh that broke off into a pained grunt and their smiles sobered. He sighed, good hand hovering for a minute before he took hers. Her eyes widened, surprised at the touch, but her smile came back.

“Get some sleep,” he told her softly.

“Stay?”

He gave her hand a squeeze. “Think I can manage that.”

The End


End file.
